COREY BENNING
COREY Benning’s bright blue ’74 TD Cortina turned plenty of heads on Drag Challenge 2018, with the immaculately presented sedan chock-full of Ford Barra power. Running in Haltech Radial Blown, Corey’s car stood out, with the big four-litre DOHC turbo six almost oozing out of the engine bay. “It wasn’t easy to fit; there was a fair bit involved in getting the Barra in there,” he said.
Corey picked up the tidy TD four years ago, engineered with a Clevo V8 and C10, but that combo didn’t last the time. “I hurt the Cleveland, so I pulled it out,” he said. “I had a Barra there and wanted to see if it fit, which it kind-of did.”
After running a stocker BA motor, Corey turned up to Drag Challenge with a new mill built by Glenn Wells. Packing Manley rods, CP pistons, TBRE Stage 5 cams, Supertech oversize valvetrain and spicy stuff like fire rings, the Ford donk comes alive courtesy of an 88mm Borgwarner pushing 28psi. On 27psi, the combo made 647rwhp.
“I basically gave Glenn the green light and told him to do what all those other Barras get and just left it to him,” Corey laughed.
The car drinks E85, and Corey uses a 100-shot of gas to bring the boost up, with a custom water-to-air intercooler since there was no room for an air-to-air ’cooler out front. Behind the Barra is a TCE mystery converter: “I just told them the combo and asked them to build me something for it, and it works great,” he said.
That’s backed by a Reid-case Powerglide built by Paul Rogers, while a nine-inch with 3.25 gears gets the prodigious power to the ground, surrounded by all-new suspension arms located in standard points.
The little four-door had run a PB of 9.03@156mph previously, but Corey blew that away on Day Two of DC18. At Swan Hill he ran 8.54@156mph, before squeezing out an 8.49@166mph late in the day. Unfortunately, it came at a cost.
“I got to Mildura and I heard a mystery noise from the engine at a certain rpm,” Corey sighed. “We had a look at it and I spoke to my engine builder, who thought it sounded like a damaged timing chain tensioner, so I opted out of racing it at that point.
“It cruised back fine, but I’m too heavily invested in that motor to risk it. I turn the thing to 9000rpm, so pushing a suspect timing chain tensioner would have been risky. Next year I’ll do it again, but I won’t be looking after two mates’ cars as well!”